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Luxury in a war zone

Henry Sands

Wednesday, 21st May 2008

Henry Sands ventures into post-tsunami Sri Lanka

After three pleasant nights by the sea, we took a 15-minute tuk-tuk ride inland to our second location, Kahanda Kanda (or KK as it is referred to by the close-knit expat community). KK is a little retreat hidden up in the jungle, with just five individually styled bungalows tucked away in the trees. Our only neighbours were the howler monkeys fighting in the branches above us.

KK is owned and run by George Cooper, an Englishman who, after buying the plot with just one bungalow eight years ago as a holiday home, has developed it into the sanctuary it is now. Despite being in the Sri Lankan jungle, the rooms are designed in a quintessential English manner so that you sometimes felt you were looking after a private house rather than staying in a Condé Nast Traveller-recommended hotel. Even with my family I had never stayed at a place where I could ask a man for coconut and he would dart up a 30ft tree, assisted only with a leather belt, to fetch one.

It was not the most active holiday, but we did sign up for a bicycle tour that meandered down from KK through the jungle and paddy fields before finishing at a beachside bar on Unawatuna beach. A breakdown in communication with our Sri Lankan guide led to a couple of navigational errors, though we did eventually make it to the beach bar for lunch half an hour after the others had arrived.

We spent the afternoon on Unawatuna beach, famous for its hippie gatherings in the 1970s and now overrun with cheap hostels and handicraft salesmen. The only thing missing were the backpackers. That evening we were invited to dinner at a house in the paddy fields with a friend of a friend who rented it out as a holiday home. We ate on the veranda watching the sun go down and listening to gentle chanting from a nearby temple.

Sri Lanka may not possess as idyllic an image as some of the Indian Ocean islands or even the exoticness of other Asian countries, though if you are willing to ignore these preconceptions, you will be surprised. Despite the news reports of civil war and bombs, I feel more concerned walking through the streets of Shepherd’s Bush at night than I did in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka will become popular again, I am sure. Until it does, I plan to return — unless of course my family takes me back.